The present invention relates to a riding type work vehicle, more particularly, to a dust fender provided additional to a conventionally mounted fender of the vehicle.
A riding work vehicle of the above-noted type is known from e.g. JP2006-37779.
The vehicle disclosed in the above document includes a traveling vehicle body, a steering wheel mounted at a front portion of the vehicle body and an engine hood mounted at a rear portion of the vehicle body. A mower is connected to a front portion of the vehicle body via lift arms. Further, an engine cooling construction is provided with attachment of a dustproof net to the front end of the engine hood, so that ambient air cleaned by passing the dustproof net may be introduced as cooling air to a radiator.
In this type of riding work vehicle, conventionally, front fenders are mounted on the vehicle body in such a manner as to cover the areas upwardly of the front wheels as viewed laterally of a driver's section.
In place of a side-discharge type mower configured to discharging cut grass pieces sideways, a rear-discharge type mower configured to discharge the cut grass pieces rearwards is sometimes connected so as to promote distribution of the cut grass pieces discharged from the mower over a wider area. In such case, if the conventional front fender related technique is employed, there is the risk of the cut grass pieces discharged from the lower causing a trouble in e.g. the cooling of the engine.
More particularly, in the case of the side-discharge type mower, the mowing operation can proceed with low possibility of swirling-up of the mowed grass pieces discharged from the mower. Further, the shorter the projecting length of the front fender to the lateral outer side of the vehicle body, the more advantageous for packing in connection with transport of the work vehicle. For these reasons, the front fender according to the prior art would be formed compact, with a relatively short projecting length to the lateral outer side of the vehicle body. Accordingly, if the rear-discharge type mower is connected thereto, mowed grass pieces discharged from this mower would “swirl up” in an uncontrolled manner in the periphery or the rear area of the front fender, so that the grass pieces may get stuck to the air inlet for engine cooling, or even enter the inside the engine hood to eventually get stuck to the radiator.